1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to laser scanning microscopes.
This application is based on Japanese Patent Application No. 2007-037832, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
There is a known technique for separating some different fluorescence each of whose wavelength components are overlapping each other, by unmixing processing a set of images obtained through use of a laser light source whose wavelength is changeable, such as a pulsed laser light source (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2004-233351, for example).
In the known technique disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2004-233351, however, since a pulsed laser light source whose wavelength is changeable is used, the optical axis of the optical path running from the laser light source to the specimen may be shifted when the wavelength of the laser light is varied.
If the optical axis of a laser light is shifted while the wavelength of the laser light is sequentially varied, pixels of each fluorescence image obtained by irradiating laser lights of different wavelengths may also be positionally shifted from each other. Consequently, unmixing processing of such a plurality of fluorescence images whose pixels are positionally shifted from each other results in a meaningless process because pixels of different images have no commonality. Accordingly, spectral unmixing (separating the fluorescence signals of different fluorophores) cannot be achieved.